Business Leadership South Africa has built an online platform to help monitor and assess progress in implementing what the organisation has identified as “key governmental reforms” that impact the business environment and economic growth.
Named the BLSA Reform Tracker, the platform evaluates nearly 240 reform deliverables across three categories: criminal justice, governance and economic reforms.
“The tracker is a strategic tool to support government and business in understanding reform dynamics – what’s working, what’s stalled and what’s needed to unlock progress,” said BLSA CEO Busi Mavuso. “It empowers business leaders to make informed decisions based on credible, up-to-date data.”
According to a Thursday statement by BLSA, the tracker was developed by research consultancy firm Krutham. The organisation used the tracker to perform its first quarterly review for the months from June to August. It found that the implementation of 26 reform deliverables have been marked “100% complete” out of about 240 that the research team tracked over the last 18 months.
“That means not only have the reform policies been legislated and implemented, but their effects are already being felt in the economy – they are already making a difference. Of the rest, 59 deliverables are marked as making good progress, 108 are on track and 19 are facing major obstacles which need to be addressed,” said BLSA.
The reforms tracked are a combination of those developed by the government of national unity, which was formulated after the general election in 2024, and those from the previous administration. The total set of reforms being tracked are reviewed at least once a quarter, with new reforms that become part of governments agenda through initiatives like Operation Vulindlela included. Tracking is paused on those reforms that are regarded as complete.
Like peeling an onion
BLSA believes the implementation of reforms is not always a straightforward process and described the process as like peeling an onion, where further reforms are required as others are completed. “Given the complexity and interrelated nature of many of the reforms, sometimes another layer of required reform becomes apparent only after one deliverable is achieved,” it said.
Even so, collaborative efforts by South Africa’s public sector and the business community have laid the foundation for a successful track record. Mavuso identified reforms related to energy and efforts to have South Africa removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list as examples to follow.
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The energy action plan and the national energy crisis committee were established to ensure implementation of reforms. Working in partnership with government on many reform areas, the business sector, through Business for South Africa, established the resource mobilisation fund, which provides capacity and support to drive reform implementation.
The reforms required to remove South Africa from the FATF’s grey list included 22 action items that affected multiple spheres of government as well as private businesses.
“The grey list success, together with the gains made in the energy sector, particularly in overcoming load shedding, as well as the progress in numerous other areas such as visa reform and completing the spectrum auction, fuel optimism that we will be able to overcome the country’s major economic problems by continuing to work hard on progressing the reform agenda,” said Mavuso.
Despite these areas of success, there are areas where the implementation of reforms is particularly challenging, including the municipal system. BLSA said the extent of “misgovernance” in local government, characterised by fruitless and wasteful expenditure, is worsened by a lack of expertise in those areas targeted for reform.
Professionalising municipal administrations through competent senior appointments, reviewing the structure of local government and updating the fiscal framework ensure sustainable service delivery are key to driving positive change in the municipal sector, according to BLSA.
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“If the government fails, the country fails. If the country fails, business fails. For this reason, business is fully committed to the reforms designed to improve economic efficiencies. And a notable feature of the progress made so far in addressing the numerous structural problems that hold back the country’s economic growth prospects is how effective the partnership between organised business and government has been,” said Mavuso. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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